What's Love Got to Do With It
by maxini-sama
Summary: This is just a short little songfic from Ceres' pov - she's thinking about her screwed-up love for Mikage and just angsting in general. Oh, if there are numbers on some of the lines in the story, just ignore them and if they're gone...then good!


WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT  
  
Lyrics by Tina Turner  
  
Story by Maxini-sama  
  
Funny, how it can take five thousand years to realize your dreams are only that… dreams.  
  
Funny, how it can take five thousand years to finally understand that love isn't the wonderful thing you thought it was.  
  
Funny, how even after five thousand years it's still so painful.  
  
You must understand  
  
That the touch of your hand  
  
Makes my pulse react  
  
Why did it always seem as if history was doomed to repeat itself? Why couldn't she break free from this vicious cycle? She was so tired of this.  
  
Seeing him here, again, was like looking straight into the past. He hadn't changed, and she supposed neither had she. Nothing ever really changes.  
  
But as much as she hated him, as hot as the fires of rage inside her burned, there was something else there, too. She could not deny that something inside her quickened at the sight of him, her age-old lover, her age-old enemy. There was a thrilling sort of anticipation, a muted excitement coursing through her body, making her nervous and unsure of herself and almost… happy.  
  
It felt almost as if this strange feeling were coming from… her heart?  
  
But no, that was stupid.  
  
But it's only the thrill  
  
Of boy meeting girl  
  
1 Opposites attract  
  
How could her heart have anything to do with this? This had always been just a matter of biology, simple biology. You don't need love for biology. You don't need love for anything.  
  
It's physical  
  
2 Only logical  
  
Her only purpose was to produce descendents, and not being able to remember why that was her purpose didn't change anything. She was supposed to be the lover of mortal men, using them to perpetuate her own celestial lineage. Whatever she felt for him must be only some confused sexual attraction. Theirs had been a relationship of functionality and… and… necessity, after all.  
  
… hadn't it?  
  
You must try to ignore  
  
3 That it means more than that  
  
Because, oh, if it was love, what did that mean? That would make everything so complicated, so unclear, so… dangerous. She couldn't get too close to him again, she couldn't let herself feel anything. She couldn't allow him to maintain a hold on any piece of her heart, however small. She just couldn't.  
  
What's love got to do with it  
  
What's love but a second-hand emotion  
  
Hearts and feelings and love… they served no practical purpose. So what good were they? They didn't do anything. They just made you confused and held you back and got in the way. Something was important only if it served her purpose. So then why would she feel something so… useless?  
  
What's love got to do with it  
  
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken  
  
And if love was anything, it was useless. Didn't she know that already? Hadn't love ruined everything? If it hadn't been for love, she would never have long ago given him that small portion of her powers, never would have given of herself so naively. And if she hadn't done that, he never would have become so jealous and protective, so different from the man he was before. He never would have stolen her mana away, keeping her bound to this wretched world. She wouldn't be here now, facing him again after so many years, except for love.  
  
No, if what she had felt before was love, it had caused nothing but chaos.  
  
And if what she felt now was still that same foolish emotion, she refused to act on it again. Love was only a weakness and a flaw. It never turned out right; it was never what you expected.  
  
It may seem to you  
  
That I'm acting confused  
  
When you're close to me  
  
She could rationalize all this to herself, yet still it made no difference. Facing him now, in violent confrontation, there was still that feeling. She could hear herself arguing with him, hear the words, so full of hatred and vindictive rage, falling from her mouth like drops of poison, but it was as if she was listening to someone else, someone who wasn't truly her. She wanted to say other words, different words, truer words.  
  
If I tend to look dazed  
  
I read it someplace  
  
I've got cause to be  
  
It must be Aya. Being incarnated in her body must be affecting her somehow. She was such a naïve girl, so full of emotions yet so unable to understand them. What did she know of love? She hadn't lived five thousand years with its consequences. She had it all wrong. She thought love bound people together; she didn't know it really only drove them apart.  
  
There's a name for it  
  
There's a phrase that fits  
  
Yes, it had to be Aya's childish notion of love that made her feel the way she did. She had learned her lesson after all, hadn't she? She wouldn't be foolish enough to repeat the same mistake. She wouldn't keep believing in a lie. Or questioning whether or not it was a lie.  
  
4 But whatever the reason  
  
You do it for me  
  
Regardless, it didn't matter now. The only thing that mattered now was getting her mana back, ending this once and for all. Maybe there was something there, some ember that refused to die out completely, but she could just ignore it. She would let nothing – not Aya, not her own doubts, nothing – stop her.  
  
What's love got to do with it  
  
5 What's love but a second-hand emotion  
  
She told herself that, tried to be resolute, yet she still felt divided inside. How could she ever expect to win against him if she couldn't even resolve the conflict within herself? Again, that pointless notion of love, which she was working so hard to suppress and explain away, was causing problems. Hadn't it always been at the root of all her hardships?  
  
What's love got to do with it  
  
6 Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken  
  
Why couldn't she find whatever she needed to silence that little voice inside her, the one that whispered that there still might be another way, a better way. But she knew there was no other way. That voice was wrong, had to be wrong, needed to be drowned out.  
  
I've been thinking about a new direction  
  
But I have to say  
  
I've been thinking about my own protection  
  
It scares me to feel this way  
  
This was about survival, after all, and there was nothing romantic about survival. It's just kill or be killed, take back what is rightfully hers or be possessed by another forever. She needn't make it into anything more convoluted than that. Yet there was something in the stark simplicity of it that frightened her: it was so black and white, so cut and dry, so right and wrong. Life isn't really like that, is it?  
  
What's love go to do with it  
  
What's love but a sweet old-fashioned notion  
  
Perhaps it wasn't for others, but for her it had to be. She had spent too much time around these mortals, among these people so full of feeling and so empty of sense. Granted, there was a certain… beauty… in that, but what use was beauty to her now?  
  
7 What's love got to do with it  
  
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken  
  
The only thing she needed now was strength, so why… why….  
  
Why couldn't she find it? 


End file.
